If you download and use what appears to be a version of the commercial "Walk and Text" Android app from a file sharing site, you're in for a surprise. When you run it, it shows you that it's being "cracked" but it's really gathering information from your device, in preparation for an e-smackdown. It sends a bunch of personal information (name, phone number, IMEI) off to a server, and, just for lulz, text messages everyone on your contact list:

I assumed that it would be able to do a good job recording from that while permitting me to watch the stream in full-screen. I was wrong! The output from the recording was useless. Absolutely garbage!

Thank G-O-D I was smart and "pirated" it.

Maybe the output from the full version was crap because it was a pirated version?

Srsly though the argument rings false. If your pirated version had functioned fine, there's no way you would have turned around and paid for it. You would have already had it, working. People say they'll test it and then pay the devs, but once they have the product functioning the
motivation drops way down.

Sure, in your anecdotal and totally verifiable account you ended up paying for Cyberlink's stuff. That's not the way it usually plays out though.

Not to mention the hundreds of movies I own which I would have NEVER seen without being able to download them.

If they are worth your hundreds of hours, they are worth remunerating the people who made them possible. Personally, I watch next to no movies and don't care about sending Hollywood money. But if you are watching hundreds of the things, it's a bit of a stretch to say you are owed them for free. Unless you are claiming that after having downloaded them and tested them to see if they match up to your high cineastic standards, you turn around and pay for them? Like I'd believe that?

I wrote them and told them two improvements to make:
...
2. Drop the price to $20 or less.

just lol

I'm as against draconian DRM and stupid laws as anyone, but the justifications for piracy are increasingly unpalatable for me. Your first bit, about finding a program that will actually work, is the most sympathetic to me. Programs that insist on costing money need a fully functional demo that accurately reflects the final product and it sucks when they don't. But it's increasingly hard for me to follow the thread from that to "I'll get it for free then pay for it afterwards I swear"